Band of the Day: Cults

It’s kind of fitting that Cults’ bandcamp top cover page is of worshippers crumbling in front of some alter because since I’ve been listening to their two albums – the 2011 eponymous debut and the fresh release Static, which I’ve been streaming on the God-send that is NPR First Listen – I’ve been ready to drink whatever punch their serving up.

Static is the kind of record that you end up listening to several times a day just because when it ends you don’t know what else you could possibly listen to that will make you feel the same, so you just press play. In real life, it’s also just a pretty short album clocking in at a brief 35 minutes, but I feel like it may be so because it’s just so well put together that there wasn’t a spare second for a single unnecessary dreamy guitar or floaty vocal or drum thump.

Each of the tracks is catchy in a totally not-bad way because it seems like the New York duo, Brian Oblivion and Madelin Follin, have their formula down. They produce music that’s easy listening and interesting sounding, that is fun (I can’t wait to be able to sing it out loud at places where I won’t get fired and/or thrown out for doing so) and deep grey, it’s a balanced feminine and masculine.

‘High Road’, is one of my über highlights of this album (another one is the 60’s-old-school-girl-group-ish ‘Always Forever’) with it’s The xx-esque coolness and sepia summer toned lightness. In short, Cults has replaced that place in my heart reserved for the love for (and secret dream to be part of) girl-fronted bands a lá No Doubt and Garbage. I now picture myself being part of a he-she duo that gets the best dancing and singing out of all undercover front-chicks and their dudes. We already kind of have a name – it’s Dirty Tee and The Boy.

Anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, your Band of the Day – Cults.